Community leaders call for Abbot John Henry to take leave from St. Herman's House of Hospitality after police find more guns

John Kuntz, The Plain DealerAbbot John Henry of St. Herman's House of Hospitality prepares for the annual blessing of Lake Erie at Cleveland's Edgewater Park in this January 2009 file photo. Community leaders are calling for new leadership at St. Herman's after police and federal agents, with Henry's consent, confiscated more than 200 guns near the organization's homeless shelter and at a farm the organization owns in Trumbull County.

Police and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives continue to ask questions. And safety concerns have prompted City Councilman Joe Cimperman and others with close ties to the organization or its Ohio City neighborhood to press for new leadership at St. Herman's.

"The goal is protection of the people who live there and live around there," Cimperman said Monday in an interview. "The goal is preserving the mission and getting to the bottom of what happened, and I don't know how that can be achieved without a leave by the director."

Matthew Nee, one of Henry's attorneys, said the abbot does not plan to step aside at this time. He added that his client has helped law enforcement "at every turn" to locate the guns. Flask said all searches were consensual and that Henry has been cooperative.

"This is somebody who has given 100 percent of his efforts over decades to serve the community," Nee said of Henry, known colloquially as Father John or Father Henry. "He fully intends to continue doing so. But to a certain extent, that might not be up to him."

Cimperman represents the near West Side area that includes St. Herman's, located at West 44th Street and Franklin Avenue. In a statement he released on behalf of a group of neighbors and pastors, including St. Herman's board members, the councilman pledged to help install "a new model for service."

Inspectors from the city's Fire, Health and Building & Housing departments will begin checking today for code violations at the shelter, Flask and Cimperman told The Plain Dealer.

The nonprofit Little Brothers of the Divine Compassion Inc. has operated the monastery and shelter in Cleveland since 1977, records show. At times the organization has claimed affiliation with various wings of the Eastern Orthodox Church. But recent postings on the St. Herman's web site, which has been revised several times since the first guns were found, stressed that the monastery was independent and no longer affiliated with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

The Rev. Robert Begin, a lawyer and Catholic priest at nearby St. Colman, is listed as Little Brothers' business agent and an incorporating officer, as well as a member of the group Cimperman spoke for Monday. Begin did not return several telephone calls seeking comment.

Other nonprofits have raised money for St. Herman's in recent years. The tax-exempt Friends of St. Herman's spent more than $81,000 -- mostly in utilities and maintenance -- on the shelter in 2008, the last year for which public Internal Revenue Service filings are available.

Friends of St. Herman's has since disbanded. The head of its replacement, St. Herman's Friends Inc., said last week that he was unsure how much money his group raised in 2010.

"What Father Henry does on his own time, I don't know," Gary Pescatrice said when asked about guns. "It's kind of appalling. Everyone is kind of blown away."

Henry, whose birth name is Peter Schanzenbach, has led St. Herman's since the 1980s.

Police classified their Jan. 28 visit with Henry at a home across the street from the shelter as a crisis intervention.

The police policy manual describes a crisis as a situation where someone "exhibits abnormal mental or physical behavior that threatens the safety of themselves or others but is not a violation of the law." In these cases, police seek a psychiatric evaluation, hospital commitment or both.

An inventory of the 80 guns discovered during that visit lists mostly rifles and shotguns. Nee, Henry's lawyer, declined to comment on how Henry acquired the guns.

Ken Hanson, the legislative chairman of the Buckeye Firearms Association in Ohio, defended Henry's right under the Second Amendment to have the guns.

"There is nothing illegal about owning that quantity of guns," Hanson said. "It's certainly not unusual in the people that I am familiar with."

Cimperman acknowledged that Henry has not been accused of breaking any laws.

"Someone told me, 'Guns are legal.' Of course they are," Cimperman said. "But 200 guns and thousands of rounds of ammo for a homeless shelter? That doesn't pass the smell test."